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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It appears Sir Keir Starmer has made a great first impression

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  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    Glad to see people looking at the changes to employment. Work from home is here and it's not going away. If you worked in an office and now work from home why would you want to revert back to spending so much time and money travelling? Why would your company want to spend the money on maintaining a city office when smaller cheaper ones would do with employees picking up costs like power at their own homes?

    As has been pointed out this is Bad News for property companies. Office management. All the service companies. Shops, cafes, twatty coffee shops, transport etc etc etc. But WFH means instead of people living in a rabbit hutch for £lots near the station or motorway live somewhere you actually want to live for £less with new shops cafes etc opening up.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,536
    MattW said:

    I'd merge Surrey with Kingston because that is where the headquarters are :=D .
    Not any more:

    https://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2019/11/01/surrey-county-council-moves-to-woking/
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    fox327 said:

    I think in time the people who don't want to work in the office will leave through early retirement, or will start going to the office again. There will probably be a vaccine by the end of next year so there will be no public health justification for not going to the office. Social distancing will also have to end after the epidemic is over. It is true that some people will still want to work from home, but employers will prefer staff who want to be involved in the organisation. This is more difficult to do if you do not come into the office. In time the proportion of people going to the office will increase and it may end up close to what it was before.

    I think some people find it comforting to believe that the epidemic will never end, for some reason.
    Some people will end up going back to the office full time, but I reckon that WFH is a revolution that will never be rolled back. Many will only go into the office part time, or they will only congregate physically with other colleagues for occasional meetings held in hired rooms, or they'll be at home the whole time.

    There are clearly advantages to having your employees drag themselves into the office full time, but there are also huge advantages lying in the opposite direction. I would be willing to bet that most staff prefer working at home as a matter of course to spending colossal sums of money commuting on horrible, barely functional cattle truck trains, a waste of thousands of (intensely stressful) hours every year. Then there are the costs to employers of maintaining suites of offices. And the premium they are probably going to be forced to pay in future if they want staff who have WFH jobs to choose from to commute instead.

    Basically, if you have a choice of two similar jobs that both pay the same amount of cash, one of which allows you to work from home and the other of which requires you to slog in and out of London on trains for an hour-and-a-half in each direction every week day, then you'd be bloody mad not to pick the WFH option.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,548
    tlg86 said:

    Not any more:

    https://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2019/11/01/surrey-county-council-moves-to-woking/
    Bastards, making a political statement about how woke they are.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,650

    Some people will end up going back to the office full time, but I reckon that WFH is a revolution that will never be rolled back. Many will only go into the office part time, or they will only congregate physically with other colleagues for occasional meetings held in hired rooms, or they'll be at home the whole time.

    There are clearly advantages to having your employees drag themselves into the office full time, but there are also huge advantages lying in the opposite direction. I would be willing to bet that most staff prefer working at home as a matter of course to spending colossal sums of money commuting on horrible, barely functional cattle truck trains, a waste of thousands of (intensely stressful) hours every year. Then there are the costs to employers of maintaining suites of offices. And the premium they are probably going to be forced to pay in future if they want staff who have WFH jobs to choose from to commute instead.

    Basically, if you have a choice of two similar jobs that both pay the same amount of cash, one of which allows you to work from home and the other of which requires you to slog in and out of London on trains for an hour-and-a-half in each direction every week day, then you'd be bloody mad not to pick the WFH option.

    Some people will end up going back to the office full time, but I reckon that WFH is a revolution that will never be rolled back. Many will only go into the office part time, or they will only congregate physically with other colleagues for occasional meetings held in hired rooms, or they'll be at home the whole time.

    There are clearly advantages to having your employees drag themselves into the office full time, but there are also huge advantages lying in the opposite direction. I would be willing to bet that most staff prefer working at home as a matter of course to spending colossal sums of money commuting on horrible, barely functional cattle truck trains, a waste of thousands of (intensely stressful) hours every year. Then there are the costs to employers of maintaining suites of offices. And the premium they are probably going to be forced to pay in future if they want staff who have WFH jobs to choose from to commute instead.

    Basically, if you have a choice of two similar jobs that both pay the same amount of cash, one of which allows you to work from home and the other of which requires you to slog in and out of London on trains for an hour-and-a-half in each direction every week day, then you'd be bloody mad not to pick the WFH option.
    I think this will even itself out, and that many services will be required for at-homers.

    This could be an even-further continuing renaissance of the pub lunch, or takeaway lunch,
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    tlg86 said:

    Not any more:

    https://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2019/11/01/surrey-county-council-moves-to-woking/
    I live near Kingston. Do I have a County Council? I assumed my local government authority line was to the GLA?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,536
    ydoethur said:

    Bastards, making a political statement about how woke they are.
    My dad says he walked past Midas House yesterday and it looks derelict so I don't think they've moved yet.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,536

    I live near Kingston. Do I have a County Council? I assumed my local government authority line was to the GLA?
    Kingston was Surrey once upon a time. That Surrey CC were based outside of the county has been a running joke for some time. But people living in Kingston come under the London Borough of Kingston.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,548

    I live near Kingston. Do I have a County Council? I assumed my local government authority line was to the GLA?
    Yes. So you would now have a borough council and presumably be part of the London area.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,188
    stodge said:

    There will be winners and losers but capitalism's like that - it's brutal but it provides opportunities for the adroit and the adept.

    Home deliveries for example have grown exponentially - will they continue? We know online retail has prospered. Some local retail will be fine - the corner shop will be all right and for the elderly and others the trip into town will still happen.

    I do agree transport providers face a very uncertain future. For months, trains have run, virtually empty, generating no revenue for the operators but the track needs to be maintained. The buses in my part of London are quiet, the tube largely deserted.

    Local pubs and cafes will be all right - people who work at home still have lunch. The city centre places will still be frequented by the young at the weekend.

    As an aside, if I were a home designer I'd be cutting back on bedrooms in favour of a ready made home office space.

    The suburban retail infrastructure might do well from this - perhaps a return to a more community-focussed retail.

    Have very much considered getting a warehouse. Our shop is great, but in a couple of years it may be too small for our growing online business.

    Only thing that is stopping me is the need for a bank and a post office nearby. At the moment we have both, but will we in a few years? I suspect our grade II listed shop might be converted into residential at some point...
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849

    Some people will end up going back to the office full time, but I reckon that WFH is a revolution that will never be rolled back. Many will only go into the office part time, or they will only congregate physically with other colleagues for occasional meetings held in hired rooms, or they'll be at home the whole time.

    There are clearly advantages to having your employees drag themselves into the office full time, but there are also huge advantages lying in the opposite direction. I would be willing to bet that most staff prefer working at home as a matter of course to spending colossal sums of money commuting on horrible, barely functional cattle truck trains, a waste of thousands of (intensely stressful) hours every year. Then there are the costs to employers of maintaining suites of offices. And the premium they are probably going to be forced to pay in future if they want staff who have WFH jobs to choose from to commute instead.

    Basically, if you have a choice of two similar jobs that both pay the same amount of cash, one of which allows you to work from home and the other of which requires you to slog in and out of London on trains for an hour-and-a-half in each direction every week day, then you'd be bloody mad not to pick the WFH option.
    Never mind what the employees want. Think about the huge cost of vast central offices to business. If you can significantly cut this operating cost why wouldn't you? Yes have an office where people and teams meet. But not all in all the time. WFH works, has been stress tested and tweaked during lockdown and with the odd team meeting thrown back in sounds like perfection. Company cost huge costs, offload some utility costs to employees who benefit from better work/life balance. Everyone wins! Except for all the people employed supporting these offices, the land agencies who own and build the offices etc - they are all screwed
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    MattW said:

    I think this will even itself out, and that many services will be required for at-homers.

    This could be an even-further continuing renaissance of the pub lunch, or takeaway lunch,
    I was speculating on that point myself a little earlier. Much of that economic activity to support the office workers isn't just going to evaporate - it'll simply move away from where the redundant offices are in the urban cores, out to where these people live.

    If you're saving all this extra time not commuting then, unless you're in an occupation where you really do need to be glued to your computer/phone the whole time you're not on your break, then why not start early, take a two-hour lunch break to go shopping and/or down the pub, and then come back home after that to finish your allotted hours?

    Much more flexible working ought to be another benefit of the WFH revolution - along with a much wider range of work now potentially available to disabled people who find it challenging to get around, too.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,810
    edited June 2020
    Alistair said:

    Do we know who is on Biden's campaign staff? One of my biggest mistakes was assuming Hilary had retained some of Obama's data team when instead she rejected all of them and put in place a bunch of fucking morons who thought Obama had won 'wrong' in 2012.

    I want to make sure none of those thunder fucks are involved with Biden.
    "Won wrong" - I see.

    Let's do that again!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,650
    edited June 2020
    Mortimer said:

    Have very much considered getting a warehouse. Our shop is great, but in a couple of years it may be too small for our growing online business.

    Only thing that is stopping me is the need for a bank and a post office nearby. At the moment we have both, but will we in a few years? I suspect our grade II listed shop might be converted into residential at some point...
    It's entirely possible to create a downstairs study / spare bedroom / future bedroom with no requirement for stairs. My dad (architect) had one from the 1960s.

    I have been advising self-builders of modest homes along those lines for a number of years.

    Fitting one into a small 1000 sqft semi may be more interesting, but entirely doable. They are all over the London suburbs.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    Mortimer said:

    Have very much considered getting a warehouse. Our shop is great, but in a couple of years it may be too small for our growing online business.

    Only thing that is stopping me is the need for a bank and a post office nearby. At the moment we have both, but will we in a few years? I suspect our grade II listed shop might be converted into residential at some point...

    Switching to the other side of the table so to speak and going into retail is something I have been considering for a while. Convenience store turnover have been growing for a number of years and they have been a big winner in lockdown. A move towards more local living and working will only accelerate this.

    Another consideration. Direct to Consumer is the exciting "new" trend, an explosion in stuff you can now get direct from manufacturers. Problem is that it currently exploits an unsustainable jobber delivery driver model - people getting multiple deliveries from various D2C companies won't work. So back to C-stores as a community hub - order in what you want, collect it from your local shop.

  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 7,012
    Let's look at the ratings in 3 yrs time... if Boris has not been forced out by then.....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,548
    kinabalu said:

    "Won wrong" - I see.

    Let's do that again!
    Reassuring to see a Leftie admitting winning wrong is more important than winning the argument...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,548
    MattW said:

    It's entirely possible to create a downstairs study / spare bedroom / future bedroom with no requirement for stairs. My dad (architect) had one from the 1960s.

    I have been advising self-builders of modest homes along those lines for a number of years.

    Fitting one into a small 1000 sqft semi may be more interesting, but entirely doable. They are all over the London suburbs.
    I have been pondering doing something like that myself by extending the garage.

    The cost is something I am hesitating over, however.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,810
    ydoethur said:

    Reassuring to see a Leftie admitting winning wrong is more important than winning the argument...
    With Trump it really is just about winning. Special case.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,508
    edited June 2020

    I was speculating on that point myself a little earlier. Much of that economic activity to support the office workers isn't just going to evaporate - it'll simply move away from where the redundant offices are in the urban cores, out to where these people live.

    If you're saving all this extra time not commuting then, unless you're in an occupation where you really do need to be glued to your computer/phone the whole time you're not on your break, then why not start early, take a two-hour lunch break to go shopping and/or down the pub, and then come back home after that to finish your allotted hours?

    Much more flexible working ought to be another benefit of the WFH revolution - along with a much wider range of work now potentially available to disabled people who find it challenging to get around, too.
    If many people are going to be WFH all or almost all of the time, why do they need to be in the UK at all? Why not somewhere sunnier, at least for the winter months? Somewhere with much lower property prices and maybe lower taxes, as long as it has a decent internet connection.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,548
    kinabalu said:

    With Trump it really is just about winning. Special case.
    Johnson isn’t?

    Bugger, hopes dashed again.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,522
    GitHub to replace "master" with alternative term to avoid slavery references

    This includes dropping terms like "master" and "slave" for alternatives like "main/default/primary" and "secondary;" but also terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" for "allow list" and "deny/exclude list."

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-to-replace-master-with-alternative-term-to-avoid-slavery-references/
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,359

    GitHub to replace "master" with alternative term to avoid slavery references

    This includes dropping terms like "master" and "slave" for alternatives like "main/default/primary" and "secondary;" but also terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" for "allow list" and "deny/exclude list."

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-to-replace-master-with-alternative-term-to-avoid-slavery-references/

    No more Jedi Master Yoda?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    kinabalu said:

    "Won wrong" - I see.

    Let's do that again!
    Something that I always thought escaped notice about 2012 and why I thought the Republicans were a sure thing to win in 2016 until I realised Trump would be the Nominee, was that the Obama win over Romney was pertty narrow. The EC amplified the effect.

    It would have taken just 263,869 people flipping their vote for Romany to have won out of 129,085,410 total votes cast.

    The Obama campaign wrung every last drop of support out of state that mattered, especially Florida.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,731
    This is classic Matt Taibbi hyperbole, but contains an element of truth, I think.

    The American Press Is Destroying Itself
    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
    ... police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

    The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

    They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

    Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions....
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,192
    eadric said:

    Quite. I'm looking at Thailand, or Greece, maybe Sri Lanka. I mean, why not?
    Why not just hire the Thai, Greek or Sri Lankan worker in the first place? That is the awkward question.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Matt Taibbi is a fucking moron.
  • fox327fox327 Posts: 373
    edited June 2020

    Some people will end up going back to the office full time, but I reckon that WFH is a revolution that will never be rolled back. Many will only go into the office part time, or they will only congregate physically with other colleagues for occasional meetings held in hired rooms, or they'll be at home the whole time.

    There are clearly advantages to having your employees drag themselves into the office full time, but there are also huge advantages lying in the opposite direction. I would be willing to bet that most staff prefer working at home as a matter of course to spending colossal sums of money commuting on horrible, barely functional cattle truck trains, a waste of thousands of (intensely stressful) hours every year. Then there are the costs to employers of maintaining suites of offices. And the premium they are probably going to be forced to pay in future if they want staff who have WFH jobs to choose from to commute instead.

    Basically, if you have a choice of two similar jobs that both pay the same amount of cash, one of which allows you to work from home and the other of which requires you to slog in and out of London on trains for an hour-and-a-half in each direction every week day, then you'd be bloody mad not to pick the WFH option.
    Yes I can see that, if you can choose between job offers. There is likely to be high unemployment for some time, however. Employers will also be choosing staff when they start up full operations again. I expect this will vary between different sectors. In some occupations working from home does not really exist, and in others it is an option. Business typically is driven by competition. If some companies are office-based and others in the same market are organised around working from home, competitive advantage will determine which model wins out. Most industries were office-based until 2019, and unless proven otherwise I taken this to show that working from an office is normally more productive than working from home.

    There used to be entire human resource business strategies that were based on team building, collaborative tasks, and building effective working relationships. Will these things no longer matter in the future, or can it all be done online? This is why I think that working patterns will tend to become more office-based in time, as they used to be.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,263

    Why not just hire the Thai, Greek or Sri Lankan worker in the first place? That is the awkward question.
    Yep. We are not stopping globalisation, we are accelerating it.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,827
    No, we can do that. :lol:
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    fox327 said:

    I think we are at the start of the jobs revolution and of mass unemployment. What is likely to be the fundamental consequence of this crisis is that it will radically accelerate the automation of many work processes and this time round it will be disproportionately hit those with high income. Goldman Sachs' COO has already said they have found out that they have realised they can automate many tasks that they previously thought needed a human. The quote from Microsoft's CEO at the Q1 results that two years transformation had happened in two weeks probably underestimates things.

    However, what could be the scariest comment for many people in the professional private sector is the comment of the CFO of one of the major advertising agency groups that, in this crisis, they have realised that the most effective, quickest and largest way to cut costs is to scale down the number of days of their employees from 5 to 4 and 4 to 3. No redundancy costs, immediate savings and you can get scale it back up quickly if need be. That raises the spectre that for many well-off people their employment suddenly becomes variable. Yes, employers will have to make sure they get employee consent but, when the alternative is unemployment, many employees will surely sign.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 18,360
    edited June 2020
    eadric said:

    WTF will happen to Canary Wharf after all this?

    I can see the City surviving, it's so old, it has all the heritage.

    But the Wharf is shiny new, further away from everyone, full of skyscrapers with lifts full of virus, and about to be rendered completely pointless

    And a skyscraper dense city like Manhattan is just fucked.

    Provided the underlying virus level isn't too high, which is the point of the lockdown (France is now manageably OK, the UK is still a plague puddle), really modern blocks like Canary Wharf will be fine. You've got swipe cards, a few secure entrances where you can put IR temperature monitors, contact tracing will be a doddle. Someone will want to use them, even if office types decide they can work fine in shepherds huts in Chipping Norton for preference.

    Worst case, it becomes the new cheap edgy bit for youthful creatives. One of London's problems at the moment is that prices range from expensive (even in Zone 6 dammit) to absurd.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,827
    eadric said:

    WTF will happen to Canary Wharf after all this?

    I can see the City surviving, it's so old, it has all the heritage.

    But the Wharf is shiny new, further away from everyone, full of skyscrapers with lifts full of virus, and about to be rendered completely pointless

    And a skyscraper dense city like Manhattan is just fucked.

    Ghost offices for every brand that wants 'London' in their title? I mean I can't see why they'd want Canary Wharf as opposed to just a shed in Lewisham, but...
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,676
    fox327 said:



    Yes I can see that, if you can choose between job offers. There is likely to be high unemployment for some time, however. Employers will also be choosing staff when they start up full operations again. I expect this will vary between different sectors. In some occupations working from home does not really exist, and in others it is an option. Business typically is driven by competition. If some companies are office-based and others in the same market are organised around working from home, competitive advantage will determine which model wins out. Most industries were office-based until 2019, and unless proven otherwise I taken this to show that working from an office is normally more productive than working from home.

    There used to be entire human resource business strategies that were based on team building, collaborative tasks, and building effective working relationships. Will these things no longer matter in the future, or can it all be done online? This is why I think that working patterns will tend to become more office-based in time, as they used to be.

    It's an interesting speculation, and of course we don't really know. The big plus for management is not having to worry about parking spaces and admin, and inthe long term the huge saving on office costs. I don't think it's happened before now because the tools - Teams, Zoom and the rest of them - have only recently become widespread. Talking with the 5 people who report directly to me doesn't feel very different from talking with them over a table. It's marginally less "real" but also marginally more "shared experience" - we still laugh wryly about the practical issues like looking together at a diagram. It's slightly less easy to just grab someone for a quick query, but we're getting over the inhibition in making a 30-second call just to check something.

    Where we still struggle is the phone tech for the supporter engagement team, who handle all the enquiries, phone donations etc. for the charity. If a call goes to someone who isn't available, it's supposed to divert to one after another of the others, but that's slower than in the office, where anyone in the team could just grab the call. So supporters have to wait longer to get a reply, which in principle might put some off - but so far they seem OK with it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,731
    Alistair said:

    Matt Taibbi is a fucking moron.

    Moron or not, that debate is a real one.
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/14/how-the-new-york-times-survived-the-1960s-316530
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,852
    edited June 2020
    MrEd said:

    I think we are at the start of the jobs revolution and of mass unemployment. What is likely to be the fundamental consequence of this crisis is that it will radically accelerate the automation of many work processes and this time round it will be disproportionately hit those with high income. Goldman Sachs' COO has already said they have found out that they have realised they can automate many tasks that they previously thought needed a human. The quote from Microsoft's CEO at the Q1 results that two years transformation had happened in two weeks probably underestimates things.

    However, what could be the scariest comment for many people in the professional private sector is the comment of the CFO of one of the major advertising agency groups that, in this crisis, they have realised that the most effective, quickest and largest way to cut costs is to scale down the number of days of their employees from 5 to 4 and 4 to 3. No redundancy costs, immediate savings and you can get scale it back up quickly if need be. That raises the spectre that for many well-off people their employment suddenly becomes variable. Yes, employers will have to make sure they get employee consent but, when the alternative is unemployment, many employees will surely sign.

    Your second paragraph contradicts your first somewhat. Underemployment and suppressed incomes might have positive effects in deflating asset bubbles while giving people more free time.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    fox327 said:

    There used to be entire human resource business strategies that were based on team building, collaborative tasks, and building effective working relationships. Will these things no longer matter in the future, or can it all be done online? This is why I think that working patterns will tend to become more office-based in time, as they used to be.

    Teambuilding companies / events / exercises are bollocks. Build a team. Hire good people who will bring something to the team. Pay attention to them. Work productively, collaboratively, positively. There's your team built. Or, hire bloody anyone, don't manage them, wonder why productivity and moral is crap and drop thousands sending people off on a day where they have to complete bullshit tasks that have nothing to do with their function.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Alistair said:

    Something that I always thought escaped notice about 2012 and why I thought the Republicans were a sure thing to win in 2016 until I realised Trump would be the Nominee, was that the Obama win over Romney was pertty narrow. The EC amplified the effect.

    It would have taken just 263,869 people flipping their vote for Romany to have won out of 129,085,410 total votes cast.

    The Obama campaign wrung every last drop of support out of state that mattered, especially Florida.
    One thing that has been less mentioned, particularly around the Senate, is that the Republicans have only just started getting their TV campaigns rolling while the Democrats have been hitting the TV adverts for a while now. It will be interesting to see what happens with the polling.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,012
    ydoethur said:

    If they really want to rile all their supporters, there is no better way than smashing up the counties they live in.

    Labour got a huge amount of grief for dividing up Cheshire. I’ve got cousins in Telford who go absolutely apeshit every time they’re reminded they’re no longer in Shropshire.

    Heck, some people still haven’t forgiven Heath for the original reorganisation.
    Yes, sadly I am one of them. And it goes back pre-Heath with the 1965 (Labour) abolition of Middlesex under 1963 (Tory) legislation.

  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,405
    eadric said:

    Quite. I'm looking at Thailand, or Greece, maybe Sri Lanka. I mean, why not?
    I thought you guys didn't like people being able to just move to another country and start working there? Didn't we just have a referendum to stop that happening?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,012
    eadric said:

    WTF will happen to Canary Wharf after all this?

    I can see the City surviving, it's so old, it has all the heritage.

    But the Wharf is shiny new, further away from everyone, full of skyscrapers with lifts full of virus, and about to be rendered completely pointless

    And a skyscraper dense city like Manhattan is just fucked.

    The demand for residential at the right price is infinite. Could this see a massive transfer of use? As is also needed in the high street.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Your second paragraph contradicts your first somewhat. Underemployment and suppressed incomes might have positive effects in deflating asset bubbles while giving people more free time.
    Not really. The first paragraph is talking about how certain jobs that were thought not possible to automate actually are and so firms are taking active steps to do so and save costs longer-term. The second is more that, for jobs that can't be automated (eg creative work in an agency), you can more easily flex the cost base to meet reduced / increased demand by changing the number of days people work instead of (before) deciding you want to cut 10pc of your staff, having to go through the process of doing so and then paying over the odds when you needed to rehire.

    As an anecdote, I was speaking to the partner of a law firm this morning who said that the other partners are realising that it is better to replace their legal secretaries who are wedded to coming in at 9, having a one-hour lunch break and winding down at 4:30 with paralegals who are paid by the hour, start work earlier and are keen because they want a contract. I suspect a lot of this type of conversation is going on at the moment.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,827
    kinabalu said:

    The recent Applebaum article is a must read for people who are sanguine about another 4 years of Trump.
    That lady always strikes me as being somewhat unhinged.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,827
    edited June 2020
    Dupe
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,810
    Alistair said:

    Something that I always thought escaped notice about 2012 and why I thought the Republicans were a sure thing to win in 2016 until I realised Trump would be the Nominee, was that the Obama win over Romney was pertty narrow. The EC amplified the effect.

    It would have taken just 263,869 people flipping their vote for Romany to have won out of 129,085,410 total votes cast.

    The Obama campaign wrung every last drop of support out of state that mattered, especially Florida.
    Yes I'm only relaxed this time because I see a very clear margin.

    The EC is so hard to model.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Never mind what the employees want. Think about the huge cost of vast central offices to business. If you can significantly cut this operating cost why wouldn't you? Yes have an office where people and teams meet. But not all in all the time. WFH works, has been stress tested and tweaked during lockdown and with the odd team meeting thrown back in sounds like perfection. Company cost huge costs, offload some utility costs to employees who benefit from better work/life balance. Everyone wins! Except for all the people employed supporting these offices, the land agencies who own and build the offices etc - they are all screwed
    One sector I can see this be a boom for property wise is the likes of Regis etc who rent out office space. If firms decide they need to have some sort of central location for certain events but don't need it permanently, then that is a massive expansion in the available market. They should also be able to get office space quite cheaply.

    It also might mean, by accident. the restaurants, bars etc in, let's say, the City of London might not be screwed after all. You come in for a meeting after WFH, decide to stay an hour or two extra. have a lunch or a drink and head back home.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,536
    algarkirk said:

    The demand for residential at the right price is infinite. Could this see a massive transfer of use? As is also needed in the high street.
    Possibly, but Canary Wharf is not set up for a mass shift to residential use.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,482
    Fishing said:


    If many people are going to be WFH all or almost all of the time, why do they need to be in the UK at all? Why not somewhere sunnier, at least for the winter months? Somewhere with much lower property prices and maybe lower taxes, as long as it has a decent internet connection.

    Quite - the time difference may or may not be an issue. I could probably work anywhere in Europe (say plus or minus 2 hours from UK time).

    For some sectors, it may not matter at all.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    MrEd said:

    One thing that has been less mentioned, particularly around the Senate, is that the Republicans have only just started getting their TV campaigns rolling while the Democrats have been hitting the TV adverts for a while now. It will be interesting to see what happens with the polling.
    There's some quite astounding Senate polling out there at the moment with Dems in touch I states they should have zero chance in but this distance from the election I am paying them no heed (and possibly missing out on incredible value)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,263

    I thought you guys didn't like people being able to just move to another country and start working there? Didn't we just have a referendum to stop that happening?
    Its only people moving here that are the problem, not Britons taking over other countries...
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.

    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,689
    On WFH, our staff survey shows four-fifths want to carry on WFH for at least part of the week. One of the primary reasons why people want to go in to the office is social interaction with colleagues.

    Does this count as data, or just anecdata?
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Alistair said:

    There's some quite astounding Senate polling out there at the moment with Dems in touch I states they should have zero chance in but this distance from the election I am paying them no heed (and possibly missing out on incredible value)
    Upfront, I think Trump will win so discount my words as you think is best but (a) I think it is too soon, especially with everything else going on (b) things can change quickly (FYI - this is on Susan Collins of Maine who now looks to be very much back in the race https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2020/06/14/dont_count_susan_collins_out_yet_514233.html and Hicklenhooper is in trouble in Colorado) and (c) who knows what slips each candidate will make. Personal view is the Republicans will probably squeak across the line with 51/52 Senate seats
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    Foxy said:

    Its only people moving here that are the problem, not Britons taking over other countries...
    Me and TimT are doing our bit to rescue the eastern seaboard of the US, and Smithson Jr is doing his conquistadorial duty on the left coast. :smiley:
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,674
    eadric said:

    No, we don't like POOR people being able to move where they like. I'm rich, so it's fine
    "You Snobs! You Stupid… Stuck-Up… Toffee-Nosed… Half-Witted… Upper-Class Piles of… Pus!" - B. Fawlty.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,955
    stodge said:

    Quite - the time difference may or may not be an issue. I could probably work anywhere in Europe (say plus or minus 2 hours from UK time).

    For some sectors, it may not matter at all.
    It's absolute wishful thinking.

    In every meeting I've ever been in the people in the room have the advantage over the people on the other end of the phone.

    Humanity doesn't work via video link. Check ins work, between people who already know each other. But building a team, building trust, looking someone in the eye and knowing they've got this - ain't gonna happen over a webcam.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,192
    edited June 2020
    Alistair said:

    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.

    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
    Who is going to teach these home schooled kids? Or is it expected that so many parents will be unemployed that they might as well do it?

    Those WFH are supposed to be working, not teaching...
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,674
    kinabalu said:

    Yes I'm only relaxed this time because I see a very clear margin.

    The EC is so hard to model.
    Electoral Kindergarten :lol:
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,823
    Alistair said:

    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.

    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
    That's rubbish. The dereliction of duty to kids by all governments in the UK has been disgraceful. The teachers need to be ordered back to work or face the dole queue.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,522
    Albanian gangs are waging open warfare on London's streets, experts warn

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/albanian-gangs-waging-open-warfare-londons-streets-experts-warn/
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,939
    nichomar said:

    They are either too big eg cornwall or to small as happened in Berkshire. They do lose the sense of community representation and walk over existing preferred party administrations.
    Yep. Northumberland has not been a happy experience. We are far too big in area and too heterogeneous in nature. The interests of Blyth and Ashington are not those of Ponteland or Rothbury.
    On a positive point. We have abolished the one Party rule we used to have in Tynedale.
    Three elections, three different parties winning most votes and seats. And all three NOC.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    MrEd said:

    Upfront, I think Trump will win so discount my words as you think is best but (a) I think it is too soon, especially with everything else going on (b) things can change quickly (FYI - this is on Susan Collins of Maine who now looks to be very much back in the race https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2020/06/14/dont_count_susan_collins_out_yet_514233.html and Hicklenhooper is in trouble in Colorado) and (c) who knows what slips each candidate will make. Personal view is the Republicans will probably squeak across the line with 51/52 Senate seats
    That whole article seems to be predicated on internal polling. Was that 10 point deficit made known at the time?
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,218
    edited June 2020

    Albanian gangs are waging open warfare on London's streets, experts warn

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/albanian-gangs-waging-open-warfare-londons-streets-experts-warn/

    Thank god Albania isn't in the EU :blush:
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,674

    Albanian gangs are waging open warfare on London's streets, experts warn

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/albanian-gangs-waging-open-warfare-londons-streets-experts-warn/

    Balkan Lives Matter?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,263
    WFH? Not for me, there are certain practical difficulties.

    OT, anyone heard of this mob? They seem less certain of Biden than The Economist, but interesting State by State predictions.

    https://twitter.com/plural_vote/status/1272255235738796033?s=19
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 55,180
    Alistair said:

    Matt Taibbi is a fucking moron.

    On the contrary, he is one of the best journalists in America. His GFC pieces were amongst the best written by anyone. And that article is thought provoking and brave in the current climate.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,689
    Foxy said:

    Its only people moving here that are the problem, not Britons taking over other countries...
    And let's not forget that Jonny Foreigner coming over here is an immigrant, whereas Daily Mail reading twathead going over there is an Expat.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 27,526
    Nigelb said:
    Does watching episodes of Kojak count ?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 55,180
    Alistair said:

    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.



    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
    This is completely unacceptable. We simply cannot neglect our children’s education like this.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,192
    I'd be slightly wary of that US figure in case it is an average of "proper" police with glorified park keepers and security guards that Americans call cops. Paul Blart: Mall Cop is almost a documentary.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295
    O/T
    This is a fact which probably isn't popular with BLM: in recent years life expectancy for black Americans has continued rising, while life expectancy for white Americans has gone down.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,192
    edited June 2020

    Balkan Lives Matter?
    Barking not Balkan.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 18,360
    edited June 2020
    eadric said:

    I imagine, for a lot of people, a 2 day commuting week would be very desirable. The other 3 days you work from home

    Trouble is, why would any company sustain all the expenses of an office which is so underused? They won't.

    The more I think about it, the more I think core Central Business Districts, in the west, with big tall towers, are fecked. Bad news for a lot of American cities (not great for London)
    London will reinvent; it always does. And a London reinventing with the available infrastructure intact and not bombed out could be ace. Two other thoughts;

    1 London has kind of grown itself into a dead end. It's a city state that only works by sucking the life out of a large chunk of South East England. And a lot of the people you need to make the city work simply can't dream of paying their own way there.

    2 If the future of London is as a national hub, a place where more people go once or twice a week, what are the social implications? Suppose the way that people work in London is early train from Smalltown, a day of face-to-face, a meal, a show and the last train home? I can see the attractions. But one of the things that makes big cities interesting is the sense of anonymity. WFH+ could send that through the roof...
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,176
    dixiedean said:

    Yep. Northumberland has not been a happy experience. We are far too big in area and too heterogeneous in nature. The interests of Blyth and Ashington are not those of Ponteland or Rothbury.
    On a positive point. We have abolished the one Party rule we used to have in Tynedale.
    Three elections, three different parties winning most votes and seats. And all three NOC.
    North. Of. Tyne. :D
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,101
    eadric said:

    What is going on in the SNP?!

    Some huge internal stramash about trans rights.....?

    https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1272220455974428675?s=20
    Taken over by woke tw*ts, trouble coming over the GRA.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,176
    @dixiedean there’s no reason why Ponteland should not be part of Newcastle City. Borders drawn for political reasons and that’s it.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    Alistair said:

    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.

    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
    Catastrophic. Governments need to find a solution that allows kids to go to school
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Alistair said:

    That whole article seems to be predicated on internal polling. Was that 10 point deficit made known at the time?
    I can't go back and find the articles but there were suggestions Collins' voting for Kavanaugh had hurt her standing and made her a target.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    MaxPB said:

    That's rubbish. The dereliction of duty to kids by all governments in the UK has been disgraceful. The teachers need to be ordered back to work or face the dole queue.
    It's not the teachers doing this you pillock it's the government. You cannot send kids back to school. So says the the government guidelines which are explicit and unambiguous about social distancing
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,101
    MattW said:

    It's entirely possible to create a downstairs study / spare bedroom / future bedroom with no requirement for stairs. My dad (architect) had one from the 1960s.

    I have been advising self-builders of modest homes along those lines for a number of years.

    Fitting one into a small 1000 sqft semi may be more interesting, but entirely doable. They are all over the London suburbs.
    Just use your 4th bedroom, normally perfect size for an office.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,823

    It's not the teachers doing this you pillock it's the government. You cannot send kids back to school. So says the the government guidelines which are explicit and unambiguous about social distancing
    It absolutely is the teachers. They were popping champagne corks at the NUT when the government announced it had capitulated. The social distancing guidelines are also a disaster and you'll find no defense of them from me, primarily it is the teachers and their unions not wanting to go to work.

    As I said, they either report for work tomorrow or stick them in the dole queue.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,939

    @dixiedean there’s no reason why Ponteland should not be part of Newcastle City. Borders drawn for political reasons and that’s it.

    Indeed. Ponteland also successfully lobbied to NOT be on the Metro at the same time as it got itself into Northumberland.
    Keep riff raff out of Pont!!!
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,176
    dixiedean said:

    Indeed. Ponteland also successfully lobbied to NOT be on the Metro at the same time as it got itself into Northumberland.
    Keep riff raff out of Pont!!!
    Everyone knows that Callerton Parkway is basically the Ponteland Metro station!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,810
    kyf_100 said:

    It's absolute wishful thinking.

    In every meeting I've ever been in the people in the room have the advantage over the people on the other end of the phone.

    Humanity doesn't work via video link. Check ins work, between people who already know each other. But building a team, building trust, looking someone in the eye and knowing they've got this - ain't gonna happen over a webcam.
    This is true. Although I suppose it could change if digital becomes the norm.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,566
    Alistair said:

    In Edinburgh primary school pupils will be in 4 days out of 3 weeks. 1,1,2 over the 3 weeks. Whole days. Fridays will be for the teachers to offer increased work from home support.
    We'll find out at the end of June our rotas.

    I think the same style for secondary pupils as well but it is on a subject by subject basis for what that means for teaching.
    At what stage did this profession become such an utter disgrace.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited June 2020

    And let's not forget that Jonny Foreigner coming over here is an immigrant, whereas Daily Mail reading twathead going over there is an Expat.
    Well a Brit moving abroad couldn't be an immigrant from our perspective by definition. They'd be an emigrant. Which is such a rarely used word my spellcheck is underlining it red, but I'm pretty sure that's the right word.

    To me there's a meaningful difference between emigrant and expat. I'd define an emigrant as someone who has moved to a country with an intention to stay there. I'd define an expat as someone who has moved temporarily to a country but intends to return home eventually.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,176
    On WFH culture... UK housing stock is not setup for WFH. Not in any way.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    MaxPB said:

    It absolutely is the teachers. They were popping champagne corks at the NUT when the government announced it had capitulated. The social distancing guidelines are also a disaster and you'll find no defense of them from me, primarily it is the teachers and their unions not wanting to go to work.

    As I said, they either report for work tomorrow or stick them in the dole queue.
    Please explain how the teachers can get all the children back to full time education and comply with the government rules imposed upon them.

    It's not the teachers. They can pop champagne or not, doesn't change that the government won't let them have classes bigger than 15.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,188
    edited June 2020

    London will reinvent; it always does. And a London reinventing with the available infrastructure intact and not bombed out could be ace. Two other thoughts;

    1 London has kind of grown itself into a dead end. It's a city state that only works by sucking the life out of a large chunk of South East England. And a lot of the people you need to make the city work simply can't dream of paying their own way there.

    2 If the future of London is as a national hub, a place where more people go once or twice a week, what are the social implications? Suppose the way that people work in London is early train from Smalltown, a day of face-to-face, a meal, a show and the last train home? I can see the attractions. But one of the things that makes big cities interesting is the sense of anonymity. WFH+ could send that through the roof...
    Incidentally, that frequently describes my trips to Town.

    2 hour train journey, a 4-6 hours work, drinks, dinner with some mates, sometimes a show. Sometimes a kip over to work again the next day. Sometimes back on the last train. It is great fun. Probably 6-8 days a month.

    Selfishly (I have to admit), I AM looking forward to the decent hotels being sub £200 mid-week, though, because of less biz travel. Heck, they might be sub £100 for a while. I remember it being like that in 09/10...

    Will be fascinating to see what happens to property prices. Long thought about a pied a terre in South Ken sort of area, but has become unaffordable in recent years.

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,849
    Pro_Rata said:

    At what stage did this profession become such an utter disgrace.
    PB Tories? Only recently, hence the string of former PB Tories who can't stomach how amoral the rest of you are
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,101

    On WFH culture... UK housing stock is not setup for WFH. Not in any way.

    I have done it no problem for almost 20 years. With fast broadband it is no issue, mind you I have plenty of space. Imagine if you were stuck in a small flat it might not be as pleasant.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,689

    Well a Brit moving abroad couldn't be an immigrant from our perspective by definition. They'd be an emigrant. Which is such a rarely used word my spellcheck is underlining it red, but I'm pretty sure that's the right word.

    To me there's a meaningful difference between emigrant and expat. I'd define an emigrant as someone who has moved to a country with an intention to stay there. I'd define an expat as someone who has moved temporarily to a country but intends to return home eventually.
    I agree with your definition. However, those who move permanently to Spain or wherever love to call themselves expats when they are immigrants.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,955
    kinabalu said:

    This is true. Although I suppose it could change if digital becomes the norm.
    The thing is, even if digital becomes the norm, the people in the room will have the advantage - in terms of nonverbal cues and greater immediate presence. Therefore it will always be in their interest to be in the room.

    The only way digital will work long term is if absolutely nobody is in the same room. And I don't think that is going to happen.

    In my experience, the job happens in the pub after work, in the informal chat, in the coffee after dinner. Webcams and Microsoft Teams aren't about to replace that.

    Most if not all of my colleagues broke lockdown long before it was over to discuss what's what. If you're not in the room you're not in the game.

This discussion has been closed.